Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Tell HN: Political Detox Week – No politics on HN for one week

news.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

681–690 of 1001 posts

Re: Tell HN: Political Detox Week – No politics on HN for one week

#681

Post by yladiz »

nneonneo wrote: post #174

Many of the top-level comments here are against this move. I, on the other hand, would like to express my strong support for this move. Hacker News has never been an anything-goes site. Tight moderation, considerate rules, and low tolerance for bullshit have made this a great site to talk about interesting technical topics and ideas. Remember that we all abide by the rules of the site, and that this isn't a magic fre…

Your point about regional politics is a really good argument for keeping political discussions out of Hacker News, for the most part. While (I'd guess) the majority of HN users are from the states, there's probably a healthy minority that are not and political discussions, which are almost always US-centric, generally do become noise and have low relevance to them. Even to myself as an American I already see too much political discussion on other sites like Reddit and Facebook that a place that is proactive in disallowing the discussions is a breath of fresh air (or bits, I guess).

I understand it's a little contentious to remove an entire topic of discussion, but I also welcome this and if the experiment goes well I would like to see it go longer term. I'm guilty of engaging in political discussions on HN but I try to moderate my words, but I know there are many who don't moderate their words in part or at all and especially because of how polarized politics seems at the moment (in the US at least) it's maybe a smarter decision to not allow people the opportunity to not moderate their words.

Re: Tell HN: Political Detox Week – No politics on HN for one week

#684

Post by sean_patel »

ben0x539 wrote: post #374
sean_patel wrote: post #19

I really welcome this move. I couldn't get out of bed on Nov 9th and a few hours of introspection later, I realized I have no control over any of the Political changes and that I shouldn't be causing myself so much stress. So I stopped watching the news -- both online and on TV -- since Nov 9th. It's been an incredible month for me since then. I've made significant progress on my languishing side-projects ( a Show HN…

I hope you recognize that you can only opt out of being stressed about politics because you're not on the receiving end. :/

> because you're not on the receiving end.

Nope. I actually am at the receiving end. 2 of my cousins are married to illegal aliens (both Mexican women) and 1 couple has a child born here (so citizen).

Still I had a moment of clarity when I realized that

1) Trump was indeed Democratically elected, and 2) I don't gain anything by fretting over and stressing over after reading 1 bad news after another about his policies, because I really can't do anything as a single person (unless, of course, I make 1 issue my life long pursuit, then it's different).

I've chosen to focus on my Circle of Control and reduce or altogether eliminate my Circle of Concern

Related Reading: Circle of Control vs Circle of Concern: => http://www.jdroth.com/images/circle-concern-control.jpg

Re: Tell HN: Political Detox Week – No politics on HN for one week

#685

Post by striking »

chrissnell wrote: post #557
dave_sullivan wrote: post #385

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It often feels like there is one prevailing slant on this site and those of the majority are free to push their views while the rest of us must either read it and ignore it or face the onslaught of downvotes if we express a dissenting opinion. Are there any online communities where their political opinions match more with yours? Why don't you hang out there instead? I realize that's reinforcing an echo chamber, but…

I don't want to hang out in an echo chamber. I enjoy the diversity of opinions that I find among my coworkers and social media friends. However, neither my workplace nor Facebook feature the "downvote". Being downvoted for expressing an unpopular opinion here is the equivalent of being shoved out of a circle of friends. It doesn't feel good and I don't come here to feel like crap. I don't think I'm all that different…

You've got over 2k karma. You can afford to lose some.

Even then, I scrolled back through your comments. The last time you got grayed out was over a month ago (although I'll agree that that thread was a little like what you describe, and I was really unhappy to see 'idlewords and 'tptacek say what they did, not least of all because of how much I respect them... I was in that thread too, and I'll remind you that the moderators closed it because it just turned into an all-out flamewar).

I agree with your political opinion, for what it's worth. But I don't agree that you should feel anything based on downvotes. Sometimes people will disagree with you. Sometimes they won't.

But never, ever let a little number next to your name control your life. Don't let it become who you are. Make your comments when you feel they're appropriate, and don't take it too harshly when you get knocked down.

I want you to know that you're welcome on HN.

Re: Tell HN: Political Detox Week – No politics on HN for one week

#687

Post by colmvp »

karmacondon wrote: post #666

I don't know why we couldn't have voted on this. Whether it's a good idea or not, trying to impose something so broad on a community of hackers is an exercise in masochism. I agree with everyone who has said that we're capable of making up our own minds about what to talk about. I don't think political discussions were ever a problem

Voting? Why that sounds positively political of you.

Re: Tell HN: Political Detox Week – No politics on HN for one week

#688

Post by dang »

ben0x539 wrote: post #294
dang wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right, it's not possible to define "politics" precisely, and it would be a mistake to try. But there's nothing new in that; the HN guidelines have always mentioned politics without defining the term, and we get by. We can clarify, though. The main concern here is pure politics: the conflicts around party, ideology, nation, race, gender, class, and religion that get people hot and turn into flamewars on the internet.…

> The main concern here is pure politics: the conflicts around party, ideology, nation, race, gender, class, and religion I feel like trying to ban discussion of these conflicts will lead to the same outcome that reddit's weird "free speech" policy had, if more subtly. If Hacker News is the place where racist, misogynist, fascist hackers can feel particularly safe, that's going to be the kind of people you attract, a…

I'm not sure I follow this logic, but I sense that my comment was more confusing than clarifying, since I'm pretty sure it doesn't lead to the consequence you're talking about and that's not what we intend (quite the opposite).

The intention here is simply to treat political stories as off-topic for a week. The question of what counts as a political story vs. not, is pretty much an impossible one to answer in the general case, so I probably shouldn't have tried.

Re: Tell HN: Political Detox Week – No politics on HN for one week

#689

Post by Mz »

Mz wrote: post #75

I have almost zero interest in politics. I can think of one politically-framed piece I posted recently because of the GIS content and it was flagged to death promptly. I wish I could have found a non political write up of the project, which I believe predated the political situation that the article spun it around. Perhaps I shall look a little harder today to see if such a thing exists. I am totally cool with this e…

As promised, here is the GIS related works I posted a couple of weeks back, though I had to brew my own to get a piece without the political angle:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13110904

Re: Tell HN: Political Detox Week – No politics on HN for one week

#690

Post by hindsightbias »

pshc wrote: post #30

Tribalism is so toxic. I'm all for this. But for flagging purposes what's the boundary between a political/non-political story? EDIT: @dang in another comment: Let me clarify. The main concern here is pure politics: the conflicts around party, ideology, nation, race, and religion that get people hot and turn into flamewars on the internet. We're not so concerned about stories on other things that happen to have polit…

> Tribalism is so toxic

What do you think HN will be like when only the privileged ideologies are allowed?

Post reply on HN